matthew arnold

Culture and Anarchy: An Essay in Political and Social Criticism

First published 1869
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contents

i
Introduction
In one of his speeches a short time ago, that fine speaker and famous Liberal, Mr. Bright, took occasion to have a fling at the friends and…
ii
Chapter I: Sweetness and Light
The disparagers of culture make its motive curiosity; sometimes, indeed, they make its motive mere exclusiveness and vanity. The culture…
iii
Chapter II: Doing As One Likes
I have been trying to show that culture is, or ought to be, the study and pursuit of perfection; and that of perfection as pursued by…
iv
Chapter III: Barbarians, Philistines, Populace
From a man without a philosophy no one can expect philosophical completeness. Therefore I may observe without shame, that in, trying to get…
v
Chapter IV: Hebraism and Hellenism
This fundamental ground is our preference of doing to thinking. Now this preference is a main element in our nature, and as we study it we…
vi
Chapter V: Porro Unum est Necessarium
The matter here opened is so large, and the trains of thought to which it gives rise are so manifold, that we must be careful to limit…
vii
Chapter VI: Our Liberal Practitioners
But an unpretending writer, without a philosophy based on inter-dependent, subordinate, and coherent principles, must not presume to…
viii
Conclusion
And so we bring to an end what we had to say in praise of culture, and in evidence of its special utility for the circumstances in which we…